These easy to make Cranberry Shortbread Crumble Bars are a delicious treat for the Holidays. You can choose to make your own yummy tart cranberry filling with fresh or frozen cranberries, or use up some leftover cranberry sauce. Either way, they are tangy, crumbly, sweet and a little addictive.
Cranberries are in season over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this easy Cranberry Crumble Bar recipe is the perfect way to celebrate their tangy, delicious flavour in a sweet bake. Serve up for elevenses or as an afternoon pick-me-up with coffee, or cut into smaller bars for a mini dessert.
Holiday Season baking is often all about chocolate and gingerbread or if you're in the UK, a fruit cake like this Vegan Christmas Cake, or I often make my favourite Vegan Lebkuchen Gingerbread Cookies, so it's nice to have something fruity and tangy to have as well. I also love to make these Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies with White Chocolate Chips , which are the perfect balance of sweet and tart.
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🎄Ingredients
For the Shortbread Base
The shortbread is a classic combination of Fat + Flour + Sugar. It's easy to make, but is best kept chilled for the shortest crumbliest pastry.
- Vegan Butter: I like to use Flora plant based block or Naturali vegan butter as I find these have the best flavour and texture. If you are in the USA Earth Balance and Country Crock is suitable, as is Miyoko's Cultured Vegan Butter and if you are in Australia you can use Nuttelex Buttery or Flora. Alternatively you can use solid coconut oil /Copha (move quickly with this as it melts quickly).
- All Purpose Flour/Plain Flour: Ordinary flour is perfect for baking shortbread.
- Sugar: I use just plain white cane sugar, however you can use half light brown sugar/half white if you want a more caramelly flavour.
- Vanilla Extract: good quality vanilla paste or extract is the best here. You can really taste the difference and vanilla is the perfect foil to the tart cranberries.
- Salt: A pinch of salt balances the sweetness.
- OPTIONAL: the zest of one orange.
For the Homemade Cranberry Sauce Filling
- Fresh or Frozen Cranberries: I used frozen, as that's what I had to hand, but either will work.
- Sugar: Cranberries are super tart, so a little sugar is needed to offset their flavour. That said you can reduce the amount of sugar to taste.
- Juice of an orange or tangerine: sweet orange or citrus flavours are delicious with cranberries. Omit and substitute for water if you don't have any to hand.
See recipe card for quantities in both Metric and in US imperial/cups
Instructions
Follow along with these easy steps for these easy cranberry crumble bars.
1 First make the fresh cranberry sauce by combining the sugar, orange juice and cranberries in a small saucepan.
2. Bring the cranberries to a roiling boil, then simmer on a medium heat for 5-7 minutes. They will pop, then the juice should evaporate leaving you with a loose cranberry jam. Remove from the heat and let it cool.
3. Put the flour, cold butter, vanilla, sugar, orange zest if using and salt into a food processor.
4. Pulse the food processor a few times, until the mixture looks like chunky breadcrumbs.
5. Press about ¾ of the mixture (don't have to be too precise) into a lined baking 23x23 cm baking tin. CHILL the mixture (and leftover mixture) for 20 mins.
6. Spread the cranberry mixture over the shortbread in a fairly even layer.
7. Crumble the remaining shortbread dough over the top. (I sort of squish it up with my fingers and sprinkle it evenly over. )
8. Bake at 180˚C (350˚F) for about 20 mins, or until golden brown on top. Leave to cool completely before chopping into squares or bars.
Hint: Chilling the pastry allows it to be even more crumbly and delicious, which is definitely what you want in a shortbread bar!
🍓Substitutions & Variations
This recipe is so great because you can put pretty much any jam or even leftover cranberry sauce in the middle. Here are some ideas
- Leftover Cranberry Sauce/Jelly: Use up what you have left. You could add a few fresh cranberries to pad out the cranberry layer if you wished.
- Your favourite Jam or Jelly: My granny used to use homemade raspberry jam!
- White Chocolate Chips: Cranberry and white chocolate are a lovely match. Sprinkle white chocolate chips over along with the extra crumble topping.
- If the fruit isn't as tart as cranberries, eg strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, you could just use them fresh in place of the cranberry jelly.
- Coconut Oil instead of Butter: Coconut Oil (or Copha in Australia) can be used in place of butter, however you need to work quickly as it melts at a lower temperature and is harder to work with.
- Almond Extract: For a little extra pizzaz a few drops of almond extract would be delightful in the buttery shortbread crust!.
- Lower Sugar: The fresh cranberry sauce has 1 cup of sugar in it, however you could reduce this by up to a half for less sugar.
🔪Equipment
You will need a 23cm/9" square pan, lined with parchment paper or baking paper for these Cranberry Bars. I use a food processor to mix up the shortbread. I love using my Kenwood processor. It's very old now, but you can find a similar one on Amazon.
To make without a food processor: Use a large mixing bowl and rub chunks of butter into the flour. You can use a fork or potato masher. The key is to work quickly to prevent the butter from melting, as that's what creates the crumbliest flaky shortbread.
🥫Storage
Store the Vegan Cranberry Shortbread Squares in an airtight container for up to a week - ahem- possibly longer, but I haven't been able to test that on account of them mysteriously being EATEN UP before I could finalize the longevity test! This has turned out to be a favorite recipe of my husbands, which is saying something, because he generally isn't into sweet baked goods! You can freeze the bars then reheat gently, before letting cool completely and serving.
❗Top tip
Don't miss out the chill phase! I like to press out the shortbread into it's tin, then chill for at least 20 minutes. This allows the gluten in the flour to relax, and the butter to become hard again, before you bake it, creating the crumbly texture.
❓FAQ
The gluten in the flour needs to be relaxed, and the butter fully hard before going into the hot oven for a lovely flakey texture.
You can use coconut oil, however Coconut Oil (or Copha in Australia) can be used in place of butter, however you need to work quickly as it melts at a lower temperature. Make sure to chill well before baking.
Christmas Desserts
Love a sweet treat at Christmas? Why not try these great recipe ideas.
More Cranberry Recipes
Love cranberries? Try these other vegan recipes with cranberries.
📖 Recipe
Easy Cranberry Shortbread Crumble Bars
Equipment
Ingredients Note:
For accuracy, I measure all ingredients in metric as standard, then convert and test the recipe for American cup measurements etc.
(Heads up Aussie and UK readers- your measurements in cups are sometimes different, so please use metric or check you have the correct cup and spoon type!!)
Ingredients
For the Shortbread and Crumble
- 310 g (2 ½ cups) plain/AP flour
- 285 g (1 ¼ cups) vegan butter
- 90 g (½ cups) sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or paste)
- pinch table salt
- optional zest one orange
For the Cranberry Filling
- 300 g (3 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
- 200 g (1 cup) sugar
- 60 ml (¼ cups) orange juice
Instructions
Make the Cranberry Filling
- First make the fresh cranberry sauce by combining the sugar, orange juice and cranberries in a small saucepan.300 g fresh or frozen cranberries, 200 g sugar, 60 ml orange juice
- Bring the cranberries to a roiling boil, then simmer on a medium heat for 5-7 minutes. They will pop, then the juice should evaporate leaving you with a loose cranberry jam. Remove from the heat and let it cool.
Make the Shortbread
- Line your 23x 23 cm/9" baking tin with parchment paper
- Put the flour, cold butter, vanilla, sugar, orange zest if using and salt into a food processor.310 g plain/AP flour, 285 g vegan butter, 90 g sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, pinch table salt, optional zest one orange
- Pulse the food processor a few times, until the mixture looks like chunky breadcrumbs.
- Press about ¾ of the mixture (don't have to be too precise) into a lined baking 23x23 cm baking tin. CHILL the mixture (and leftover mixture) for 20 mins.
- Preheat your oven to 180˚C (350˚F)
- Spread the Cranberry filling over the shortbread in a fairly even layer.
- Crumble the remaining shortbread dough over the top. (I sort of squish it up with my fingers and sprinkle it evenly over. )
- Bake at 180˚C (350˚F) for about 20 mins, or until golden brown on top. Leave to cool completely before chopping into squares or bars.
Notes
🍓Substitutions & Variations
This recipe is so great because you can put pretty much any jam or even leftover cranberry sauce in the middle. Here are some ideas- Leftover Cranberry Sauce/Jelly: Use up what you have left. You could add a few fresh cranberries to pad out the cranberry layer if you wished.
- Your favourite Jam or Jelly: My granny used to use homemade raspberry jam!
- White Chocolate Chips: Cranberry and white chocolate are a lovely match. Sprinkle white chocolate chips over along with the extra crumble topping.
- If the fruit isn't as tart as cranberries, eg strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, you could just use them fresh in place of the cranberry jelly.
- Coconut Oil instead of Butter: Coconut Oil (or Copha in Australia) can be used in place of butter, however you need to work quickly as it melts at a lower temperature and is harder to work with.
- Almond Extract: For a little extra pizzaz a few drops of almond extract would be delightful in the buttery shortbread crust!.
- Lower Sugar: The fresh cranberry sauce has 1 cup of sugar in it, however you could reduce this by up to a half for less sugar.
- Gluten Free: use gluten free flour OR 250g oat flour and 60g corn starch (cornflour) . I've tested both versions and I prefer the oat flour version, however both are delicious and work just as well.
Taylor Mountjoy says
My dough mixture turned completely to a paste - will it still be good? I doubled the recipe!
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
Hi Taylor
I would chill the mixture thoroughly before pressing into the tin, then again after pressing into the tin before spreading the cranberries on top. Some plant-based butters are not very robust when mixed and you end up with a softer mixture than with real butter.
Also make sure to allow the shortbread to cool thoroughly before cutting. It should still taste great though.
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
Definitely my favourite sweet but tangy treat to make for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Liz says
Instead of lining the baking dish, can you spray with non stick cooking spray? Thanks!!
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
I haven't tried it with non stick baking spray yet, however I think it would work. It is quite sticky until fully cooled so make sure to cool properly before trying to release it.